He found an empty utilitarian office and gestured for the girl to sit. She perched on the edge of the chair, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
"What's your name?" Losham asked gently.
"Pari, sir."
"Pari. I'm going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer honestly. Do you understand?"
She nodded, eyes wide.
"Good." Losham leaned forward, reaching into her mind. She had no barriers up and reading her was as easy as reading a book, or rather watching a movie, because the information he was accessing was presented in images, not words. "Were the lord and ladies nice to you? Did they treat you well?" The questions were meant to get her thinking of her interactions with them so he could see those scenes in her mind.
"Lady Areana took care of us all. She made sure we had everything we needed."
She had done more than that. What Losham saw shocked him to his core. Areana had been the undisputed queen of the harem, and she and Navuh had been a couple. An exclusive couple. Pari had never seen Navuh with any of the other ladies. She was the one who brought them breakfast every morning, and he had always been in Lady Areana's bed.
He realized that the other ladies were just for show. Further peeks into Pari's mind showed him that the ladies openly took human lovers. Two had been living with them in their suites, and it hadn't been done in hiding. It had been out in the open.
That meant that the scenario he had created in his head was all wrong.
"Why did the lord allow the ladies to cavort with humans?" he asked.
Her eyes widened at the question, and she hesitated, but he increased the pressure on her mind, making her want to tell him all she knew.
"Lord Navuh wanted sons," she said. "As many as possible. Humans are more fertile than immortals, even the males, so he got a good yield over the years. Lord Navuh adopted the resulting sons as his own."
A chill ran up Losham's spine. Could he be the son of some human servant instead of Navuh's?
All the sons born in the harem were taken as babies to the Dormant enclosure to be raised by the Dormants because Navuh didn't want them to know who their mothers were, andthe mothers who their sons were. He had claimed that harem politics had toppled more than one ruler, and he wasn't going to allow that to happen to him.
It had sounded perfectly logical because history substantiated Navuh's claim about harem politics, but what Losham had learned right now shed a whole new light on Navuh's choices. If he had any sons of his own, they had been born to Lady Areana, and he had been protecting their identity by claiming every male child born in the harem as his.
His mind reeling, Losham sat back. "Did Lady Areana have any sons?"
Pari's brow furrowed. "I don't know. If she did, it was before my time. I've only worked here for four years. None of the ladies had babies during that time."
"What about before that? I'm sure the older maids gossip about things like that."
"I wouldn't know, sir. I don't think any child has been born to the ladies in the last five decades, and there is no one here that's old enough to have been here before that."
That was another reason to have only humans working in the harem. Their short lifespan meant short memories.
Losham released her mind, watching as awareness returned to her eyes. "You won't remember this conversation. You won't remember seeing me or the others who came with me. Everything continues as usual."
He hadn't needed to voice his command. It was enough that he'd planted the suggestion in her mind. But sometimes it was goodto verbalize the thrall so he would hear himself talking and catch if he had forgotten anything.
"You can go now, Pari."
She stood, dipped her head, and walked out of the room as fast as she could.
The rest of the thrall would be done by Dave, so it would be synchronized, and all the humans would get the same instructions. They would continue to serve the lord and the ladies and ignore the fact that there was no one there. They would act as if they were.
Losham kept replaying what he had learned while he and Dave made their way back to the top floor.
"The immediate problem is solved," Losham said. "Everyone believes Navuh is working from the harem. The island continues operating as usual. But we have a bigger challenge ahead."
"Your brothers," Dave said.
"Exactly. When they learn that Navuh is gone, and they will eventually discover the truth, each of them will try to take control. We need to be ready for that, or there will be a bloodbath, with our heads rolling first."
